Pakistani documentary wins The Best Human Rights Award from South Korea

Seoul, South Korea (PNI) Twinkling without Shining, a documentary about the war-affected Afghan children, based in Pakistan, wins The Best Human Rights Award from the Korea International Short Film Festival 2022, held in Seoul, South Korea, on May 5th, 2022.

Twinkling without Shining is about the dilemma of the displaced Afghan children who are living in makeshift shelters, on the sidewalks of different business and residential neighborhoods. They earn their living by picking up recyclable items from the rubbish heaps, on the streets of Karachi.

Khalid Hasan Khan has directed and produced this documentary film, which was co-produced by Mohsin S. Jaffri and Syed Ovais Ali; with Zahid Raja as director of photography. Twinkling without Shining has earlier bagged the Special Jury Prize from the 5th Annual Golden Wheat Awards, Turkey, on 30th March 2022.
Twinkling without Shining (Afghans in search of childhood) deals with the stark reality that war brings disease, displacement and dearth of every thing imaginable. These homeless Afghan children have become breadwinners for their families, back in Afghanistan and pitifully parenting their younger siblings, by sacrificing their own desires and dreams. They share their meagre income with their parents back home, in war-shattered Afghanistan. With no shelter, schooling or medical care, these (pre) teens have lost their boyhood. An elusive dream of a lasting peace in Afghanistan haunts these innocent souls, hindering them to return to their homeland. The director of the documentary added, “The refugee children from Afghanistan have undergone untold emotional, physical and psychological trauma for the last three decades; they have left their parents and their childhood painfully far behind.”

Khalid Hasan Khan has won eighteen (18) international awards for his projects that include a feature film, two short films and four documentaries; his projects were officially screened in Brazil, Canada, Greece, France, India, Italy, Russian Federation, Singapore, Sweden, Slovakia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Kingdom and United States.